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There are so many ways you can be tracked....by location, by licensing, by the applications & software you install and/or use, by your Internet activity....M$ may not be tracking you directly....but by other agencies and/or software.

Thanks for the link you mentioned. It also says, in order to see the data that was collected you have to login to your Microsoft account. However, will Windows 10 still collects data if you don't have Microsoft account?

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Thanks for the link you mentioned. It also says, in order to see the data that was collected you have to login to your Microsoft account. However, will Windows 10 still collects data if you don't have Microsoft account?

I still think are collecting our data for advertising purposes can't really escape it to be honest

"Even if all these options are disabled, which means that Activity History not only that shouldn’t collect any information, but it shouldn’t upload it to Microsoft’s servers either, user data is still sent to the software giant"

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Thanks for the link you mentioned. It also says, in order to see the data that was collected you have to login to your Microsoft account. However, will Windows 10 still collects data if you don't have Microsoft account?

When you mention "M$ using Cortana" to "track" you.....it is likely not the data that Windows have collected to be sent to your M$ account.

I would think it is the data that you do not see being sent out is your main concern....

If you have a LAN connection to the Internet, but with most apps not turned off (including AV updates, browsers and Windows updates)....do you still see the "NIC meter" or NIC - Local Area Connection Status Activity (bytes Sent & Bytes Received) moving ??

You are worried about Cortana? ABC (Google) and Amazon already own you. Your ISP already sold you out.

I'm sorry the refrain of MS doing all these down-low practices is fine, but why is it nobody cares what Apple, Google, and Amazon are doing?

Marketing is targeting you, and all those free apps aren't. If you are online, with pretty much anything you can be found and tracked. What exactly are you doing that is so nefarious that tracking you is anything but boring?

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Aside from the activity history bug, which is info only stored in your account, and assuming oy have all the telemetry settings to the lowest possible, they only collect some basic system info and statistics, you can view it with teh Diagnostic Data Viewer app available in the store. Whether or not that is OK with you is up to you but no, Apple and Microsoft are not Google, Amazon, and Facebook despite how much Reddit et al love to think so.

The more sad truth is that stuff like this activity history thing comes down to developer carelessness rather than some exciting agenda to create a surveillance state by M$. Of course, that doesn't generate clicks as well hence the articles. Same deal with the "Windows built in keylogger" that was all over the news back in 2015, which, uh, wasn't. Sure got some ad revenue for some news outlets though.

Thanks for the link you mentioned. It also says, in order to see the data that was collected you have to login to your Microsoft account. However, will Windows 10 still collects data if you don't have Microsoft account?

I still think are collecting our data for advertising purposes can't really escape it to be honest

"Even if all these options are disabled, which means that Activity History not only that shouldn’t collect any information, but it shouldn’t upload it to Microsoft’s servers either, user data is still sent to the software giant"

some articles were updated with the Microsoft comment

“Microsoft is committed to customer privacy, being transparent about the data we collect and use for your benefit, and we give you controls to manage your data. In this case, the same term “Activity History” is used in both Windows 10 and the Microsoft Privacy Dashboard. Windows 10 Activity History data is only a subset of the data displayed in the Microsoft Privacy Dashboard. We are working to address this naming issue in a future update.”

Thanks for the comment Shnool. I'm aware with other companies like Apple, Google and Amazon etc that collects your data. But I just want to know specifically about MS. I had a chat with work colleague and he mentioned in order for MS to collect your data you have to have MS account and login to your Windows 10. I thought even you don't have MS account, still Windows 10 still sends data to MS that we are not aware of, and that's not easy to prove?

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Thanks for the comment Shnool. I'm aware with other companies like Apple, Google and Amazon etc that collects your data. But I just want to know specifically about MS. I had a chat with work colleague and he mentioned in order for MS to collect your data you have to have MS account and login to your Windows 10. I thought even you don't have MS account, still Windows 10 still sends data to MS that we are not aware of, and that's not easy to prove?

Yes, there is data collection. Obviously any of the services that require an account won't be sending any data associated with your MS account but you can still enable quite a bit. So if you opt into personalized ads say or any of that stuff then yes that data is sent and I believe you can do that without an MS account, and is associated to your device (not your account). You can request this be cleared I believe. Also Office collects its own telemetry and sometimes processes documents etc online (for instance, if you use the online translation service). There is also connections to MS for telemetry, Windows update, smartscreen, defender, Windows store and appx updates, web enabled search, speech/inking/typing services (if you choose to help improve the service in the options), suggested content in the start menu based on your app usage, and a few more things I probably forgot. Pretty much everything is controllable in the UI. How comfortable you are with it is your choice, but it's pretty much all pretty mundane.

You can see almost all of this with the Diagnostics Data Viewer app made available by Microsoft last year.

Microsoft has plenty of easy-to-read documentation about this readily available from their privacy hub. I actually suggest using an MS account because it gives your more control over your data. I know you're hoping for some awesomely nefarious, tasty stuff to go tell your co-worker but you're not gonna find it. It is what it is.